SSD Inside my G4 Cube - A Quick Demo

[macnerd93]

Hi all,

After having a bit of a disappointing time with a previous IDE to SATA adapter (erratic system behaviour crashes, flashing lights or not switching on at all) I spent a bit more and got one of the red Startech ones. This one seems to play nicely with old Macs and can confirm works inside both a Quicksilver G4 Tower and a G4 Cube.

The only real issue I have is Sleep mode no longer works in either Mac OS 9 or Jaguar, when waking from Sleep the system just crashes out unless someone knows of a fix? I assume such old operating systems just have no clue how to handle flash storage when waking up from Sleep mode as it is expecting a mechanical hard drive.

Next upgrade for this system is the ATI Radeon 7500 which is in an old Quicksilver tower. I'm having a I/O bracket 3d printed so it can be suitably mounted inside the case. I also plan to install a small fan in the bottom just to ensure everything stays nice and cool, but it is kinda weird not hearing a hard drive noise or hum from a fan, right now it is a totally silent system.

 

[barbu]

That's an awesome set up. My previous Cube ran with an SSD and did not have any problems with sleep/wake. It also had a Radeon 7500, which i consider the best Cube card since it's pretty powerful and has ADC. Sadly, my DC-DC card blew and took the Radeon, the SSD, and everything else with it! I wish you better luck with the new adapter.

 

[macnerd93]

That's an awesome set up. My previous Cube ran with an SSD and did not have any problems with sleep/wake. It also had a Radeon 7500, which i consider the best Cube card since it's pretty powerful and has ADC. Sadly, my DC-DC card blew and took the Radeon, the SSD, and everything else with it! I wish you better luck with the new adapter.

Oh right I’m not sure why my sleep mode isn’t working properly. Does Anyone have any ideas?

OS X it crashes within 30 seconds of waking up and in OS 9 it goes to a full white screen straight away

 

[barbu]

There should be a way to reset the power system. You can also try the pmset command to see if there is a process preventing sleep.
I think it was pmset -g assertions but i'm not sure how far back that command goes, it may not be in 10.2.

 

[z970]

When I installed an SSD into my iMac G4 with the same StarTech adapter, it exhibited the same behavior on Panther. Incidentally, the inability to sleep was a deal breaker for me, so I took it out and replaced the spinner, good as new.

That same adapter now refuses to run Tiger on my MDD without eventually freezing the system every time.

How good are Compact Flash adapters? I've heard that they natively use the same interface as IDE drives, so that might be a much better fit. I wouldn't want to use one if it's similar to an SD card, though.

 

[macnerd93]

There should be a way to reset the power system. You can also try the pmset command to see if there is a process preventing sleep.
I think it was pmset -g assertions but i'm not sure how far back that command goes, it may not be in 10.2.

my firmware isn’t up to date still running on the original one. Going to update that and see if it makes a difference.

 

[barbu]

my firmware isn’t up to date

ohhhh that is crucial, and i regret not mentioning it since it had occurred to me. You definitely want the latest firmware to eliminate that as a possible problem.

 

[macnerd93]

ohhhh that is crucial, and i regret not mentioning it since it had occurred to me. You definitely want the latest firmware to eliminate that as a possible problem.

Yeah I hadn’t realised. I assumed my friend would’ve done that as he used the machine up until 2007/08. In storage for for a while then gave me it last year for doing his wedding pictures

 

[eyoungren]

Regarding sleep: Try using the Apple Menu (or keyboard commands) to sleep the Mac, instead of relying on the system. This does not happen on my PowerBook that has an SSD, but I've read about sleep issues elsewhere. That's all I can suggest, no idea if it will work or not.

But those that suggested it found it worked for them. It just took them a little getting used to because it means having to remember to sleep the Mac before they walked away - rather than just letting it sleep on it's own.

 

[macnerd93]

Regarding sleep: Try using the Apple Menu (or keyboard commands) to sleep the Mac, instead of relying on the system. This does not happen on my PowerBook that has an SSD, but I've read about sleep issues elsewhere. That's all I can suggest, no idea if it will work or not.

But those that suggested it found it worked for them. It just took them a little getting used to because it means having to remember to sleep the Mac before they walked away - rather than just letting it sleep on it's own.

this is where the issue lies for me clicking the sleep option crashes the Mac basically.

given the massive speed gain over a normal hard drive I think I can live with it though

 

[eyoungren]

this is where the issue lies for me clicking the sleep option crashes the Mac basically.

given the massive speed gain over a normal hard drive I think I can live with it though

I'm not sure about this in regards to desktops so take it skeptically: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ovements.1723868/?post=18990466#post-18990466

The third tip at the bottom disables safe sleep. Essentially, on a laptop, when you close the lid, the OS writes out all the contents of RAM to a sleep file. Disabling safe sleep eliminates that (you lose everything in RAM when the Mac sleeps).

IF it's relevant, and then IF it works on desktops it might be something to try. I'm just guessing - no real solution.